Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday March 15, 2012 @10:29AM
from the preemptive-buzzkill dept.

First time accepted submitter eternaldoctorwho writes "Research has been underway to produce a coffee bean plant that naturally has no or little caffeine content. Now, it looks like that might become a reality in the near future: Paulo Mazzafera of the University of Campinas in Brazil has come closer than ever with a strain containing 'only 2% of normal caffeine levels.' Coffee, anyone?"

I used to love the stuff, 2 a day on most work days. I stopped cold turkey at the start of February, giving in to a quarter cup after 3 weeks after a big breakfast when up north. Had half Starbucks "short" this morning because I was just too damn tired.

I was partly inspired by this blog article [youarenotsosmart.com], partly by health concerns that had developed over the previous few months including a feeling of over-sensitivity to the caffeine, and partly just to see if I could do it.

After the first week of withdrawal symptoms, mostly slight headaches in the afternoon, I was pretty much operating as normal. I think it's good to force one's self out of a habit for a while.

And yet, some of the top baristas in the world, as shown by international competitions, are to be found in North America (for example, the founder of Vancouver's Caffe Artigiano was in the top three in the World Barista Championships multiple years). The west coast is particularly good for this. Seattle in the US and Vancouver in Canada have several small chains with extremely well trained staff and who commonly purchase their coffees from auctions offering selections of best-of crops for a given growing season. In other places in North America, however, it can be a bit harder to find good coffee, let alone a barista that can pull a proper espresso show by knowing how to properly adjust his tamping technique and tweak the grinder setting each day as a batch of roasted coffee ages and requires these adjustments daily. The reverse side of this coin is that there is a significant community of amateur coffee geeks who can give the pros a run for their money (you can get a pretty good coffee roaster online for little over $100, and a decent burr grinder for about the same)--enthusiasm and experimentation can go a long way.